Editorial: Supreme Court gets it mostly wrong

States have the right to protect their borders if they perceive inaction by the federal government. That’s the view of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, whose scathing dissent this week in a key court ruling on Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration law helps sharpen the differences cutting across this divisive issue.

The court on Monday tossed out most of Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070, ruling Congress has the overriding authority to enact laws protecting our national borders. It said in its 5-3 ruling (Justice Elena Kagan recused herself because of her prior work with the U.S. Justice Department) Arizona reached too far into what has been a federal responsibility. It said states cannot allow police to make warrantless searches of those who might be here illegally, they cannot punish people who don’t have immigration papers on the person and they cannot punish employers who hire illegal immigrants. The court did leave standing one section of the law that allows police to seek proof of citizenship or legal immigration status of those they stop for whatever reason.

Critics have jumped on the lone provision left standing as an excuse for police to institute “racial profiling” on individuals.

The issue is far from settled, of course. What is not in dispute is the United States — and particularly those states along our southern border, such as Texas — have a continuing problem with people entering illegally. They become criminals the instant they cross the border into this country without proper documentation. That’s what the law says — and that is what is beyond dispute.

Have federal officials done enough to stem the tide? That depends on who you ask. Deportations of illegal immigrants are up over where they stood a decade ago, according to the U.S. Justice Department. The number of border patrol officers is up many times over the same period, according to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

But the threshold question is whether the effort has been sufficient. The answer clearly is a resounding “no.”

That’s why Arizona enacted SB 1070, and why other border states, such as Texas, are crying out for more enforcement by the federal government.

Scalia, one of the dissenters in the opinion, said states “have the right to protect their borders against foreign nationals, just as they have the right to execute foreign nationals for murder.”

The court ruling is a temporary victory for the federal government. INS and Justice Department officials shouldn’t high-five each other over this ruling. Instead, they need to get to work to solve what the court declared is their problem.